Vagina Monologues – Rewirehttps://rewire.news
News, commentary, analysis and investigative reporting on reproductive and sexual health, rights and justice issues.Tue, 26 Sep 2017 20:45:40 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.2New Abortion Play Could Spur Difficult Discussions Among Audiences and Activists—and That’s a Good Thinghttps://rewire.news/article/2015/01/27/new-abortion-play-spur-difficult-discussions-among-audiences-activists-thats-good-thing/
https://rewire.news/article/2015/01/27/new-abortion-play-spur-difficult-discussions-among-audiences-activists-thats-good-thing/#respondTue, 27 Jan 2015 22:53:15 +0000http://rhrealitycheck.org/?p=52695Perhaps the same thing can take place with abortion rights as has happened with the Vagina Monologues: that, at the least, Out of Silence can act as a jumping-off point for activism that may push even further than abortion storytelling itself in the future.

]]>There was a time when “vagina” was more of a whisper at universities than a word, when communities and administrators were not engaged in high-profile debates on how to better address sexual violence. The Vagina Monologues helped, in part, to change that with annual stagings in campus theater houses around the country. The play has become so ubiquitous, in fact, that some feminists are ready to move on, or at least raise critiques of it and call for greater inclusion in its messaging.

Even so, the Vagina Monologues’ vignette-driven format has been an inspiration for activists seeking to use a similar mechanism to draw attention to other issues. Most recently, the reproductive rights group Advocates for Youth dramatized 14 real stories submitted to its 1 in 3 Campaign for Out of Silence, a new play designed for use on college campuses that aims to destigmatize abortion, honor the diverse range of experiences that come with ending a pregnancy, and encourage others to share their abortion stories.

A world in which society prioritizes comprehensive reproductive health care and does not shame abortion is a bold vision indeed. The usual trifecta of grassroots movement building, public policy initiatives, and electoral strategy cannot, alone, achieve it. Something squishier needs to happen, too—culture change. And perhaps the same thing can take place with abortion rights as has happened with the Vagina Monologues: that, at the least, Out of Silence can act as a jumping-off point for activism that may push even further than abortion storytelling itself in the future.

In late January in Washington, D.C., an audience of abortion-rights advocates were present for a preview of Out of Silence, poised to gobble up both the concept and the stories themselves.

The first story began as a woman named Ruah and her friend sipped beer, listened to Bikini Kill, fretted over a missed period and the idea of taking a pregnancy test, and wondered whether abortion is wrong. The immediate message was that abortion was going to be discussed beyond talking points and abstract debates about constitutional rights and religious beliefs, with more nuance and in the context of the lived experiences of multidimensional—and sometimes contradictory—people.

The characters had a variety of reasons for seeking abortions, and feelings about having them: A young woman, age 15, had an abortion and no problem with it. A devastated lesbian couple sought abortion after receiving unexpected prenatal testing results. A new opposite-sex couple that could barely stop making out chose abortion because they simply didn’t know each other well enough. A mother and a daughter fought about rape, abortion, and the support one could—or should—expect from other people.

Each story was chosen from the nearly 700 abortion stories collected by the 1 in 3 Campaign because it spoke to one of ten playwrights who read through them and created the vignettes. Still, it is an artistic production, and so while some of the fictionalized narratives may include words and details from the original stories, others may be largely drawn from the imagination of the artists.

This does not mean the play was apolitical. In the current environment, sharing abortion stories is in itself political, a fact evidenced by the handful of protesters with graphic signs gathered outside the theater on the evening of the premiere (one said “here come the killing women” as I walked inside behind a small group of people). The production itself also included chiffon-like banners in the background, on which footage of both abortion-rights and anti-abortion-rights protests were silently screened in between stories.

It is in these spaces where art may offer the most hope, with its ability to articulate realities that don’t fit neatly on unified protest signs, and through its representation and re-creation of the inner lives and complex experiences of women. Character, in the sense that it includes the idiosyncrasies that make a person who they uniquely are, is pretty much the antithesis of a story that has been focus-grouped or edited to be indistinguishable from talking points for a political point of view. The multi-page blocks of didactic “dialogue” in Ayn Rand’s novels showcase precisely what goes wrong, artistically, when characters are viewed as vessels for political messages rather than representations of people who do human things like take out a bad night’s sleep on their coworkers, or get crushes on people who snort when they laugh. In a panel discussion after the production, one of the playwrights, Anu Yadav, expanded on her view of theater’s role in advocacy, including that theater can help “smash stereotypes with good character development.”

That’s a heavy lift with vignettes surrounding an action the audience already knows: that the main character of each story will have an abortion. It was, however, indeed clear the playwrights were striving to flesh out who the characters were not just in the context of their pregnancies, but in their lives as people. They largely succeeded, although there were occasionally times when it appeared that the desire to convey a specific political message was overpowering a natural flow of dialogue.

Overall, from an artistic and activist perspective, there are advantages and disadvantages to this Vagina Monologues-style model of theater, in which individual characters speak to her—or perhaps his—truth. Recently, in fact, the Vagina Monologues found itself the focus of scrutiny that many of the pioneering student actors and women’s studies professors who championed its first productions could not have imagined.

Earlier this month, a student-run theater board at the women’s college canceled its production of the Vagina Monologues, explaining its view that the play does not effectively include transgender women. “At its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman,” said Erin Murphy, a representative of the board, in a campus-wide email obtained by the conservative blog Campus Reform. “Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive.”

The student group’s decision on the play came on the heels of the college’s announcement at fall convocation that Mount Holyoke was adjusting its admission policy to explicitly include transgender students. “Mount Holyoke remains committed to its historic mission as a women’s college,” according to its website. “Yet concepts of what it means to be a woman are not static. Traditional binaries around who counts as a man or woman are being challenged by those whose gender identity does not conform to their biology.”

It is not surprising to see a 20-year-old feminist play dropped by students because it rallies for women’s empowerment under the banner of vaginas, in both the specific context of Mount Holyoke this academic year, as well as the broader context of youth activists often leading the demand that traditional feminist spaces grow to include a conception of gender that does not depend on genitalia. This critique is not explicitly new; in 2005, Ensler wrote an additional, optional monologue featuring a transgender woman.

Quickly after the news of the removal of the play hit the blogosphere, playwright Eve Ensler responded with a piece in TIME. “The Vagina Monologues never intended to be a play about what it means to be a woman,” she wrote. “It is and always has been a play about what it means to have a vagina. In the play, I never defined a woman as a person with a vagina.” Ensler also referenced transgender women performing the play, and the inclusion of a new monologue that features the story of a transgender woman.

While many may have nodded their heads in response to Ensler’s viewpoint, her response overlooked that art is in the eye of the beholder. This is one reason why art plays such a powerful role in liberation. Storytelling art is not just about building empathy with others; it is about viewers having the freedom to interact with, interpret, and project their needs into artistically created lives. Art is created to provoke reactions, and some of those reactions might include calls for better artistic representations of people who do not see their realities reflected.

To that end, what is revolutionary for some is reactionary to others. It is perfectly legitimate to not interpret art according to the maker’s intentions, and Ensler missed that point by sharing what she envisioned and using “I” statements in her response to Mount Holyoke. For whatever flaws it is perceived to have, one of the greatest beauties of the Vagina Monologues is that it became something much bigger than Eve Ensler sitting at a keyboard with the aim of empowering women with vaginas.

It is perfectly acceptable, and beautiful even, if after the passage of two decades that something bigger is not big enough for younger feminists who want more inclusion. It means that some are ready to move past destigmatizing vaginas and onto transgender inclusion—or the inclusion of a more diverse range of stories, period. In this way, Ensler may have succeeded in driving a feminist conversation beyond her wildest dreams.

As far as Out of Silence is concerned, then, the production of an abortion play would likely be greeted differently depending on the community. On some campuses it might be revolutionary just to stage an abortion play, period. On others, the play might help destigmatize abortion and encourage the sharing of stories. On still others, it might serve as inspiration for campus activists to continue their work to increase access to abortion, defang sexuality as a weapon for discriminators, and realize gender equality or racial equality or reproductive justice.

If it really succeeds, however, Out of Silence will spur difficult discussions about the nature of inclusion—and that is a positive thing. In fact, such discussions are already taking place. During a panel following the premiere, for example, a member of the audience identified as having a disability. With regard to the prenatal testing vignette, this person urged the playwrights to expand their thinking about what quality of life can mean for people with disabilities. The comment was not met with Eve Ensler-style defensiveness; it was acknowledged and not rebutted. In this way, the comment itself was allowed to hang in the room for further reflection by the audience and the playwrights.

That moment gave me the most hope for Out of Silence and the groundbreaking activism it aims to spur. Messy, raw, and honest conversations from multiple perspectives are among the best things liberatory art can inspire. It is not possible to tell the abortion story, or represent women as a whole, and those who try will fail and do harm to the community, especially to those left behind. But when more people are inspired to raise their unique voices fearlessly, and to pursue further justice? That’s magic.

]]>https://rewire.news/article/2015/01/27/new-abortion-play-spur-difficult-discussions-among-audiences-activists-thats-good-thing/feed/0Vagina Is Not a Dirty Wordhttps://rewire.news/article/2012/06/26/vagina-is-not-dirty-word/
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 21:50:15 +0000Let's celebrate vaginas and work to give the lucky woman who posseses one the freedom to control it.

]]>“Vagina” is not a dirty word, although legislators in the state of Michigan seem to think so. Recently, in response to the debate over a strict anti-choice bill that places onerous obstacles in the path of women seeking legal abortion, State Representative Lisa Brown used the word “vagina” in her responding remarks. She was subsequently barred from speaking on an education bill as her words were deemed offensive and in violation of house decorum.

Censoring her speech represents the underlying tension of sexual conversations and policies in the United States where the Puritan values of our early nation battle against later movements toward sexual liberation. Of course, the irony is clear, although painful: Men who abhor the word “vagina” are quick to regulate it through law and religious decree.

However, the women of Michigan were not silenced for long. In response, they performed the award winning play, The Vagina Monologues, by activist and playwright Eve Ensler on the steps of the capitol. In the name of free speech and female autonomy, Michigan lawmakers and actors performed the play that celebrates the power of female anatomy and validates women’s complex feelings about their sexual organs while also confronting the violence done to the vaginas of girls and women regardless of age, nation, or sexual orientation. Moving beyond arguments of free speech and abortion rights, Ensler cogently told the Associated Press, “If we ever knew deep in our hearts that the issue about abortion … was not really about fetuses and babies, but really men‘s terror of women’s sexuality and power, I think it’s fully evidenced here.”

In fact, the epicenter of the so-called conservative war against women seems to reside in the vagina. Conservatives are against comprehensive sexual education that would teach young people age-appropriate information about their sexual and reproductive anatomy, including the correct medical and anatomical terms for body parts. Information on sexually-transmitted infections that would preserve and protect these body parts are also taboo. Conservative legislators also want to prevent women from receiving contraceptive coverage through their health insurance providers while asserting the primacy of the conscience of religious employers and lawmakers over the conscience of women. The same state legislators who can’t say, or even hear, the word “vagina,” whether in Michigan or Texas, apparently do not feel the same compunction against legislating invasive and mandatory vaginal probes. (In women’s best interest, of course!).

Perhaps lawmakers should be required to have a vagina before regulating vaginas because in that case the discussion becomes less ideological and more real. The world looks very different when the vagina lies between your legs instead of between the pages of your law books.

If lawmakers were really concerned about women and their vaginas they would vote for the Violence Against Women Act, which was debated earlier this year in Congress, with Democrats largely favoring and Republicans opposing. The real violation of vaginas is not in saying the word, but rather entering one without consent. Vaginal decorum in state legislatures means not prohibiting the word, but rather appropriating funds to test rape kits to identify sexual assault perpetrators.

The November elections are ahead and voting matters as much as vaginas. Some of the names on the ballot are vagina-friendly, and others, not so much. While some legislators give lip service (pardon the pun) to vaginas, their rhetoric of support for women does not match the reality that their votes act against the best interests of vaginas by denying women sexual education, contraception, and reproductive rights.

And by the way, while you are pulling the lever on behalf of vaginas, learn to say the word proudly. It’s not the vague “down there” or even the trendy “vajayjay.” The vagina is a wonderful tubular tract, responsible for much pleasure as well as being the wondrous birth canal. It’s not a word or a body part of which to be ashamed. Let’s celebrate vaginas and work to give the lucky woman who possesses one the freedom to control it.

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Contrary to popular myth, feminists
do not spend Valentine’s Day committing cards and jewelry to a roaring
bonfire before an annual performance of the Vagina Monologues and a
rousing game of darts with a man-shaped board. But since this romance-and-capitalism
fraught holiday seems to cause anxiety for everyone, regardless of their
patriarchal or feminist bona fides, we at Rewire thought we’d
compile a V-Day advice column. For your pleasure we offer you
this Q+A generously supplied for us by a columnist called "Dear Gabby" — the
feminist equivalent of a certain well-known syndicated advice peddler.

So why not chew on answers
to these questions along with your heart shaped candy? And have a happy
V-day.

Dear Gabby,

You’re writing this column
for a reproductive health site. What does reproductive health have to
do with romance and flowers?

– Irritated in Illionois

Dear Irritated,

Well, along with the idea of
Valentine’s Day being a day where you assess how emotionally healthy
your relationship is and how comfortable you are together, it’s a
good time to remember that physical and emotional wellness often go
hand in hand. So while a visit to the doctor or a frank discussion of
sexual health issues may not be a thrilling way to spend your Valentine’s
Day, in the days leading up to the 14th turning off that
"He went to Jared!" commercial and assessing your and your partner’s
health isn’t a terrible idea, or a romance-killer. In fact, openness
in addressing these issues could lead to a much more romantic night.
And if you’re not in a relationship, of course, it’s just as important
to be informed and empowered about your sexual health.

Dear Gabby,

What is your problem, man?
Why do your object to a day that celebrates love?

– Miffed in Massachusetts

No one objects to celebrating
love, Miffed. What some of us object to is the idea that on Valentine’s
Day love is celebrated in a very old-school way that ignores decades
of progress on sex, sexuality and gender. Suddenly on Valentine’s
Day we’re stuck back at the idea that if he gets her the right flowers
and diamonds and spends the right amount of money, she’ll be more
likely to sleep with him. It puts pressure on everyone, and even folks
in egalitarian or non-heterosexual relationships start to feel the heat
around Valentine’s Day after the 100th commercial seeps
into their brain. It’s even worse for single people who are likely
perfectly happy until the V-day hoopla starts telling them they are
failures for not having a date on the 14th. All these messages pounding
at our subconscious bring us back to the whole "health" question.
Having a healthy physical and emotional perspective on yourself and
in the context of your relationship can help you build up resistance
to social pressure and enable you find a nice, non-patriarchal way to
celebrate.

Dear Gabby,

I really like Valentine’s
Day, and all this talk about transactional relationships and the patriarchy
is getting me down. Can’t I just enjoy a night of fun without losing
my feminist street cred?

– A Romance-starved Reader

We all have those moments when
we participate in or enjoy certain rituals that aren’t 100% up to
our ideals – heck, I catch "Wife Swap" every chance I get. Don’t
compromise your beliefs, but if you want to have a field day with
glitter, doilies and stickers and top it all off with oysters and champagne
so you can save your activist energy and righteous anger for the 15th,
that sounds okay to me.

Dear Gabby,

What’s with Eve Ensler’s
"V-day?" Why do we have to talk about violence against women on Valentine’s Day? And why do I have to suffer through a play
every year where I listen to the word
"vagina" shouted loudly hundreds of times? That’s just gross.

– Boorish Ben in Boise

Well Ben, for a lot of women
in the world – many of whom are our neighbors and friends-the idea
of romance is far from their reality because they have few rights and
protections from sexual violence. For many women who are living comfortably,
Ensler’s quest to turn V-Day into a day of solidarity and sisterhood
has really hit home. Ensler and others believe that until all women are given equal
rights and control over their own bodies and sexuality, ideal romance
remains somewhat out of reach. So in other words, by granting
women equal rights and fighting against the too-routine abuse of women,
we’re also paving the way for more romance in the world – the kind
of romance that comes from two equals being attracted and interested
in each other and free to pursue that interest.

As for your critique of Ms.
Ensler’s play, the fact that is often performed by over-eager students
who enunciate the word "vagina" with the kind of ardor minted in
acting class makes it easy to mock, yes. But give me a break. It’s
a very well-done play, and along with Carrie Bradshaw, it has truly
changed the way we talk about sex in this country and really busted
through a taboo. If you think the word "vagina" is gross, you clearly
haven’t been watching any Judd Apatow movies, Sarah Silverman, 30 Rock,
or basically any popular comedy in the last five years. They all owe
Eve Ensler a debt for freeing that once-verboten word for use on everybody’s
lips, no pun intended. And something tells me you’re a "Knocked
Up" fan.

Dear Gabby,

What should I get my feminist
lady-friend for Valentine’s Day?

-Anxious A in Albuquerque

A,

A pre-order of the forthcoming
book "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" of course. It’s on every
thinking girl’s wish list. What could be more romantic than Lizzy
and Darcy getting over their suspicions and falling in love while
simultaneously conquering an army of brain-eating undead? Hope that
helps!

]]>Ah, Valentine's Day. A day of flowers, crowded restaurants, and single people deciding whether or not they're feeling bitter. It's also a day when anti-feminists sound the alarm about the frightening feminist takeover of college campuses everywhere. The feminist crime? Alerting the world about the existence of two things anti-feminists believe would be better ignored in hopes they'll go away: vaginas and violence against women.

Now I know what you're thinking: But those two things are very different! It's true, they are. Vaginas do so much good for the world and violence against women doesn't do much good at all. Vaginas give pleasure and give birth, and violence against women is about punishing women for just that. Oh wait, that's the connection. Vaginas (and reproductive and sexual capacity in general) make society want to control women, and violence is the tool often used in service of that agenda. Playwright Eve Ensler made this connection many years ago after writing her famous and quite frankly funny play "The Vagina Monologues". The rampant misogyny that drives people to be afraid to discuss female bits without fear and shame also drives violence against women. So why not use the play's popularity to raise money to fight violence against women, and simultaneously educate people about these connections? And do it on Valentine's Day, to keep the "V" thing going and because people are surrounded by reminders of ladyparts everywhere they turn by the red and pink hearts that proliferate on Valentine's Day. Who could object to fighting rampant misogyny?

Well, it turns out that rampant misogynists object. Which makes sense–you can't really have rampant misogyny without the misogynists, and nor can you expect them to give up their worldview that easily. Anti-feminist women's organizations (Yes, you'd think that's a contradiction in terms, but some women find sister-bashing quite the profitable enterprise.) have made a sport out of protesting the various campus productions of "The Vagina Monologues" that help raise money and awareness every year.

The Independent Women's Forum, along with Concerned Women for America, takes the lead, and has established a "Take Back The Date" counter-event, based on the argument that admitting one has a vagina and attracting dates are mutually exclusive activities. They have some success with this argument, though it's hard to say where they're finding women who think men would rather ask them out if they believe a) you don't have a vagina to speak of or at least b) they'll never have to see the foul thing. Perhaps if you pick up all your dates at "ex-gay" events, then the promise of a future together with all roses, no nudity does work as a pick-up line.

Critics of V-Day performances of "The Vagina Monologues" would have you believe that they're just motivated by a squeamishness about ladyparts, and not that they're necessarily opposed to women's right not to be beaten or raped. But I am more suspicious. Not that anyone is like, "Yea, wife-beating!", but advocacy against violence against women necessarily fits into a pantheon of beliefs centered around the belief that women are full human beings deserving of their full rights. Which means reproductive rights, the right to non-traditional family choices, the right to dignity within the family, and the right to feel good about yourself as a woman, all things that set social conservatives on edge. In short, you can't stop rape and domestic violence without curtailing male dominance, and social conservatives support male dominance.

And they're quite aware of how you can't have a male dominance omelet without cracking some rape and wife-beating eggs. Take the situation in South Carolina, for example. When feminists protested the fact that wife-beating is a misdeameanor, even though cock-fighting is about to become a felony, legislators dismissed the protesters by questioning their intelligence and suggesting that cock-fighting is indeed brutal in a way that beating the tar out of your supposed loved one is not.

"Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse. Today it's simply, ‘Let's don't go forward with this act.' "

In all the pearl-clutching about the word "vagina", it's important not to miss the forest for the trees. Are social conservatives just easily offended babies who faint at hearing that women actually have genitals? (What do they think the precious babies emerge from, anyway?) Or do they oppose the actual message of V-Day and "The Vagina Monologues"—that women are full human beings, equal to men, and deserving of full autonomy and self-determination. Considering all the hostility towards not just the play, but the day, I'm firmly convinced that it's the latter.